Lead Me Out Of The Dark (Daryl Dixon)
by alora.angelina
Summary: Katherine Payte is a loner, has been for about eight months now. Daryl Dixon just lost majority of his group, and what was left didn't want him around anymore because of his brother's actions thus leaving him on his own now. What happens when these two meet? What about when Daryl's group (what's left) finds him and begs him to return, but Katherine refuses to be in a group?
1. Character Information

**Hey guys, Alora Angelina here! I just wanted to let everyone know, I quit my old story (Romance Is..) because I was NEVER inspired to write it. I was the one night I started, but since I haven't had any ideas. I didn't want to leave anyone who read it hanging, therefore I just quit it. Now, however, I am starting a new story. This story has my original character Katherine in it. I'm working on a book/novel which is a spin-off of The Walking Dead and doesn't contain any of the characters from the show. I'm going to use bits of that novel in this, so if you read this then by some miracle my book gets published no one stole it haha. Anyways, this is going to be set AU. It'll be after the whole Woodberry/Prison war. I'm going to make this my own, and very few characters from the show will be in this. Most will have died in the war, and I'm sorry if you don't like that. This is my story, and I'm going to do it how I want it. Reviews are always loved, wanted, and welcome. Let me know what you think, guys! Anyway, here's Katherine's bio.**

**FULL NAME**: Katherine Cassidee Peyte

**DATE OF BIRTH | AGE**: August 21st | Twenty-One

**NICK NAMES**: Kay, Kat, Rin, Peyte, Kathy

**GENDER | SPECIES**: Female. | Human.

**PLACE OF BIRTH | RESIDENCE**: Senoia, Georgia. | Somewhere in Mid-Georgia. Near Newnan/Sharpsburg, Georgia

**STATUS**: Alive

**HAIR COLOR | TYPE**: Soft Black | Very Curly

**EYE COLOR**: Hazel/Milk Chocolate

**LOYALTY(GROUP)**: N/A

**FAMILY MEMBERS**: None Known Living

**PHYSICAL APPEARANCE**: Katherine is a tiny girl, standing at around five foot three inches and only about a hundred three pounds she doesn't look like much but don't let that fool you: She can lift twice her weight and has a right hook that can knock a grown man on his ass. Her hair is a curly, unruly mess and can normally be seen in a messy bun with stray strands falling free. Katherine's eyes are hazel, but mainly a milk chocolate color though in certain light the green and gold specks in her eyes are visible. Her smile is her best feature, as it is accompanied with her dimples, though she rarely ever smiles so they go unnoticed for the most part.

**PERSONALITY**: To say Katherine is hot tempered would be an understatement. She has learned to shoot first, ask questions later. In a sense, it is simply because she is a survivor and in the world she must now live in this quality is one you must have to keep on going on. She is cold, distant, and blocked off when it comes to others. Once she trusts, or at least is willing to accept, someone then her true personality begins to show. While she acts like a hard-ass, and for the most part she is, Katherine cares. She is compassionate, loving, nurturing, and quirky. She jokes about most situations when someone in their right mind would be terrified; It's how she copes. She is very sarcastic, but has a good head on her shoulders and knows right from wrong.

**SKILLS**: Hand-to-hand combat, very fast runner, cat-like reflexes, silent, tracker, hunter, fisher, outdoors expert

**WEAPONS**: Bow and Arrow, combat bow, single-hand crossbow, knives, machete, knows how to shoot but never uses a gun

**BACKGROUND/BIO**: Katherine Cassidee Peyte, Kat for short, was never your typical Farmer's Daughter. Most are raised to be religious, respecting, naïve, innocent, sheltered, etc. Katherine however is none of that. She's a bad attitude with a mouth to match. Her self morals come before how she treats others, and she strongly believes in "an eye for an eye". She's quick tempered, and distant. She can't be put to blame, however, anyone would be this way if they lived the way she had, and were now in a monstrous hell of a life.

Katherine was always a daddy's girl, seeing as her mother hated her. She blamed Katherine for her failed marriage by saying that when she came along, her husband focused all on her and neglected his duties as a husband and lover. In reality it was because her mother was an addict and a whore. As she grew up, her father was away most of the time due to work. Katherine wouldn't have minded much, except she was home schooled by her mother who instead of teaching her put the small girl to work. She made her do all the farm work, and house work, and beat her when she felt she didn't do it right. Being an addict, her mother would do anything to get her fix, including selling her daughter off to the dealers for a night or two. Katherine hated living this way and the only reason she tolerated it was her father. When he wasn't home sick in bed due to his cancer, he was out working his ass off to support the three of them. When he could, her father took her out hunting and camping teaching her how to care for herself and survive on her own. As if he knew…

When Katherine was eighteen, her father passed away from his lung cancer and as soon as he did Katherine was out on the streets with nothing but the clothes on her back and the bow her father had given her before he passed away. The young girl lived in the woods for a week or so, before one of her old neighbors found her. An elderly man named James Mason. He and his wife, Claudia, took her in as their own and let her live there in return for helping them around their farm. Katherine happily agreed to this and quickly learned to love the elderly couple.

When the outbreak began, no one knew what to think. The government tried to play it off, but Katherine knew better. She had a gut feeling something was wrong, and sadly she was right. While working on the farm one day she heard Claudia scream bloody murder. Katherine rushed to the house to see James laying on the ground, dead, with Claudia hugging him crying. Katherine managed to pull Claudia off James just as he reanimated- going straight for the girls in hunger. Claudia pushed Katherine away and embraced her husband who proceeded to rip her throat out. Shocked, Katherine was frozen momentarily then ran into the kitchen grabbing a butcher knife and ending James' life for the second time that day. She coaxed Claudia down from her hysteria, and sang to the woman until she passed before stabbing her in the head as well not wanting her to reanimate. Katherine was nothing but broken at this point, but she knew she couldn't dwell on her feelings and forced them aside now in survival mode. She gathered supplies and set off into the woods, ignoring everything and everyone unless they were the walking dead in which case she re-killed them.

After three months alone in the woods, Katherine ran across a group of six and decided to join them. Somehow, the young girl became their 'leader'. Everything was great until they were over ran and she watched each person in her group get ate, herself the only spared. She vowed that day to never get in another group. Months later, Katherine was taken by a group of men who "needed a woman" around camp. They used and abused her for two months until she finally escaped, managing to kill five of the men who tortured her. Now, three weeks after her escape, she is on the move. Silent, alone, nothing but her and her bow (along with machete, knives, and an extra gun just incase) Katherine doesn't live. She survives, and goes through the motions. She does this for her father, she knows he wouldn't want her to give up and would want her to keep fighting so she is for his sake.

Katherine is alone, but not scared. She would much rather be on her own than in a group of people who would just slow her down. At least…that's what she likes to try and convince herself.


	2. Chapter 1

Katherine knew is she was to keep on going, alive and as healthy as she could be, she had to go into a near by town and get herself some food and supplies. She was running dangerously low. She also knew she had to do it sooner than later, after all she only had a box of crackers, two water bottles, and a 'family size' can of green beans left. Granted, in the trying times that was fairly good, but it wouldn't last her very long even with how she rations her food out. The young adult pondered going and raiding a gas station for a while before concluding that she would need more than a run-down cheap gas station had to offer her. She'd have to back track and go into the small seemingly abandoned town she's passed a while back. She'd seen a boarded up Walmart Supercenter and hoped it was as untouched inside as it seemed to be on the outside. Her only concern now was the setting sun. As much of an advantage as moving in the night had, it was also an equal if not greater disadvantage. She could move faster, go more unnoticed than in the day, but the Walkers seemed to thrive in the night and multiply. It was like they were nocturnal or something. At an inward fork-in-the-road, Katherine weighed her options as she sunk back into the tattered seats of the stolen Ford F150 she was currently residing in.

On one hand, she could leave now and make it to the town as dusk hit. She could slip into the store, get what she needed, and get out as daylight broke. On the other hand, she looked at the danger she'd be putting herself in by doing this. It was a lot riskier to travel at night, alone, especially if you were female. Katherine had no problem holding her own, but the group of men after her made it difficult. Rubbing her pale, dirtied face with her surprisingly soft palm, Katherine closed her hazel eyes as she thought. Finally Katherine made her decision and sat back up, before swinging the truck door open and stepping out into the brisk air around her. Shivering, she frowned looking at her surroundings. No one kept time anymore, she didn't think, but she could guess it was probably mid-October, early-November. This meant two things: One, she was now twenty-one and her birthday had passed her without her realizing. Two, winter was coming and she needed to find a place to huddle up so she didn't freeze to death.

Walking around to the back of the truck, to the bed, she sighed then opened it up and groaned softly as the smell of rotten decaying corpse hit her nose in full blast. A week or so ago when she got this truck Katherine took down a lone-walker and placed it in her bed to keep the smell of her truck hidden when she stopped for the night. Pulling herself up into the bed, Katherine carefully stepped over the dead body then walked back to where she kept her supplies. She didn't bother checking the 'camping' bag, nor the 'clothes' bag for things she needed. Instead, she picked up the 'toiletries' and 'food' bags. Quickly slinging the near empty bags over her shoulder, she picked up the 'ammo/weapons' bag and placed it on the top of the truck, opening it to look through it.

Three hand guns, one of those a revolver. Two shot guns. One normal crossbow. One hand-crossbow. Assorted hunting knives. Two bows. A machete. And lastly: two quivers, both low on arrows. There was hardly any ammo left, Katherine noted, and she'd also need to pick up any arrows or items she could carve into arrows on her run.

Her fingers played over the items, before deciding to grab five throwing knives first. She placed them in their holsters on her thighs and wrists before grabbing her machete. Putting it on its holster on her hip, she looked back at her weapons. '_Light, and reusable._' She repeated to herself mentally as she looked over the weapons. Her gun was light, not reusable. Her axe was reusable, not very light. Her hand-crossbow however was pretty light and if she could grab the arrows after shooting them, reusable. Deciding to go with that one she picked it up after swinging a quiver full of arrows on her shoulder, then walked to the back of the truck and jumped off the bed. Sighing softly, Katherine then shut the truck and walked over to the front. Popping the hood, she pulled the battery out and put it in her bag then began her walk to the town.


End file.
